> -----Original Message----- > From: brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com [mailto:brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com] On > Behalf Of David Hobby > Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 6:52 PM > To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion > Subject: Re: What is wealth? > > Dan M wrote: > > > ... > > Look at the wealthiest countries in the world. With the exception of > the > > US, they have fertility rates below replacement, some (like Japan, > Germany > > and Italy) far below replacement. > > > > The countries with high fertility rates tend to be poorer. Thus, wealth > is > > anti-correlated with the probability a person's gene marker will be seen > in > > a given member of the Nth generation after one's own (which is a > standard > > measure of sociobiological fitness). > ... > > Dan-- Sad to say, that remains to be seen. Once > wealth has been equalized across the world, then > it's reasonable to count numbers of descendants.
Its true that its impossible to predict the future, but we've had 50 years of trends, and that's worth something. IIRC, baring some technological breakthrough that will allow folks to live far longer fairly soon, the die is cast for the decline of Europe and Japan. Take Japan as an extreme example. It's somewhat unusual in that it has a double population peak in 2008. The first on is 55-59, the second 35-39. 30-35 is close to 35-39, but then it drops off fast, ending up with 0-4 only half of 35-39. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the bottom line is that the overwhelming majority of females are either out of or leaving the age range of fertility. (65% are 35 or older). As a result, baring a drastic immediate cultural change, the aging and then decline of Japan's population is all but written in stone. The EU as a whole is not as dramatic, but it should expect to see a 20% or so decline in population every year. So, it would take a massive change in attitude to reverse this. The single shining counterexample to all of this is the US, which I'd argue is a unique multicultural country. Second, mass disease/starvation still exists, but it's mostly in Africa. The largest two countries (China and India) have done a great job of pulling themselves out of abject poverty over the last 20 years. China has gone from a per capita income (inflation adjusted dollars) of $1700 to $7600 over that time. That's not rich, but factors of almost 5 are nothing to be sneezed at. India has not done as well: $1100 to $3700, but that's still better than a factor of 3. I remember (maybe you are too young to) the massive starvation in India in the '60s. Now, there is still extreme poverty there, but there is not the same risk to human life. So, we are within a decade of this type of drastic drop in poor country populations being confined to Sub-Sahara Africa. Fertility rates are falling around the world, but nowhere so drastic (besides Russia which is falling out of the developed world) as in the highly developed world outside of the US. A couple of caveats, to be sure. Still, summary info can be made from data. The world will be far less Japanese and European in 100 years than it is today. And it is far less Japanese and European today than it was 100 years ago. Finally, are you thinking about a possible/probable collapse of civilization? That's one possibility that I had not addressed here. Dan M. > If the poorer countries wind up with huge population > crashes on the way to global equality, then having > fewer children who were better off financially > may turn out to have been a good reproductive > strategy. : ( _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
